I am currently looking for a way to secure a REST API using token based authentication. I am developing the API in Python using Flask and have discovered the flask-security extension which seems to have a lot of interesting features.
One of the features mentioned in the documentation is Token Authentication.
According to the documentation:
Token based authentication is enabled by retrieving the user auth token by performing an HTTP POST with the authentication details as JSON data against the authentication endpoint. A successful call to this endpoint will return the user’s ID and their authentication token. This token can be used in subsequent requests to protected resources.
I am however still a bit confused on how to implement this feature using flask-security. Some online research has led me to using things such as @auth_token_required but I am having some trouble to put everything together. The flask-security documentation itself is not very helpful.
For example, how can a user get an authentication token? what is the authentication endpoints?
It would be great if you could lead me in the right direction. Code examples would be awesome too :-)
Endpoint is /login, you post your credentials as json request body:
{'email':'[email protected]', 'password':'1234'}
However for this to work you need to disable the csrf tokens in your flask app (thanks Mandar Vaze):
app.config['WTF_CSRF_ENABLED'] = False
Then you do each request with the token in the HTTP headers:
Authentication-Token:WyI1NTE1MjhmNDMxY2Q3NTEwOTQxY2ZhYTgiLCI2Yjc4NTA4MzBlYzM0Y2NhZTdjZjIxNzlmZjhiNTA5ZSJd.B_bF8g.t1oUMxHr_fQfRUAF4aLpn2zjja0
Or as query string:
http://localhost:5000/protected?auth_token=WyI1NTE1MjhmNDMxY2Q3NTEwOTQxY2ZhYTgiLCI2Yjc4NTA4MzBlYzM0Y2NhZTdjZjIxNzlmZjhiNTA5ZSJd.B_bF8g.t1oUMxHr_fQfRUAF4aLpn2zjja0
Client example in python 3:
import requests
import json
#do the login
r = requests.post('http://localhost:5000/login',
data=json.dumps({'email':'[email protected]', 'password':'1234'}),
headers={'content-type': 'application/json'})
response = r.json()
print(response) #check response
token = response['response']['user']['authentication_token'] #set token value
#Now you can do authorised calls
r = requests.get('http://localhost:5000/protected',
headers={'Authentication-Token': token})
print(r.text)
Angular example snippet to obtain the token:
$http.post('/login', {"email": $scope.formdata.login,"password":$scope.formdata.password}).
success(function(results) {
$window.sessionStorage.token = results.response.user.authentication_token;
});
Angular example snippet to visit protected pages:
if ($window.sessionStorage.getItem('token')) {
config.headers['Authentication-Token'] = $window.sessionStorage.getItem('token');
}